


Ambedo

by warmAsphalt



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, This Is My First Posted Work And I Am So Afraid but here we go, also im not good at summarys sorry, i promise this fic is at least soft and not a painful one, if theres enough response for a continuation i can try to write another chapter or something, tord's only Kinda there but. he's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-01-08 01:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12244149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmAsphalt/pseuds/warmAsphalt
Summary: Comfort was a funny, fickle thing.It didn't come too terribly easily to the older redhead nowadays, the timing far too near to that accident for him to cope just yet with the changes in his appearance. He flinched at almost any reflection of himself; he couldn't help wondering how much others noticed him doing so.((title- http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/9660178280/ambedo ))





	1. Chapter 1

Comfort was a funny, fickle thing.  
It didn't come too terribly easily to the older redhead nowadays, the timing far too near to that accident for him to cope just yet with the changes in his appearance. He flinched at almost any reflection of himself; he couldn't help wondering how much others noticed him doing so.  
Tord kept him almost oddly nearby now, it seemed to him, although he'd never speak that observation aloud. Maybe the other man simply wanted to keep tabs while Matt was still healing, was all. It would've made sense, after all, he'd chide himself every now and again when the idea of fondness dared cross his mind.

Even so, he did find a small sense of relief in being kept, if only temporarily, so close to his Leader. It was rather nicer around the base than it was doing any sort of field work, for starters.  
Something about being in Tord's office, too, was strangely comforting in itself. He couldn't put his finger on it; the view was a bit nice, maybe, at certain times of day. Or maybe it was the general smell of the place. He'd have been a rotten liar if he said it didn't smell a little like Tord himself, and a bit like smoke, with a few other subtleties Matt couldn't ever quite put a name to; but altogether the smell was almost just a little like home, now.  
Thinking that over brought a frustrated tinge of red to the tall man's cheeks. This wasn't really home, idiot. He chastised himself as he carried a chair to a preferable position, nearish the windows and facing the side of his boss' desk, almost backed into a corner as it was. He had notes to recopy from earlier; now was no time to be getting sentimental.

The late afternoon sun cascaded through the massive windows; falling across the notebook clutched tightly in the redhead's lap, casting over the older man's left side as he got to work. The light warmth of sunlight soaking into his clothes was a welcome sensation; soothing, reassuring. Just enough to keep him grounded in the present, and damned if that wasn’t required lately at times.  
He sat almost curled over his work, legs slightly perched a bit beneath the seat of the chair itself; his attention lost in the scrawling words as he jotted fervently from one messier set of notes to another.

Matt ran a hand back through his hair, leaning ever-worse over his writing as that elbow propped itself against the page, cradling his head. In spite of the terrible state of his posture at current, were there anyone around to witness him, they might have noticed a gradual ease in his body’s tension as he continued with his work. He felt oddly most himself when he could just let all else go save for the focus of doing his work. No need to acknowledge he had a body, or an appearance, or that other people might see him.  
Of course, being here and out of the general view of public also aided that last bit.

\--

The sun had become little more than a smear of light across the horizon by the time his Leader had returned to his office. The other man made so little noise - and unfortunately for all Matt could recall, he very nearly always had - and it had more than once startled the taller redhead to look up only to find Tord standing a mere few feet away without any prior warning signs of an approach.  
This evening was no different.

Matt nearly slipped from his chair upon catching sight of movement at the edge of his vision, just ahead of himself; it turned out only to be Tord, all too casual about sitting at his desk without so much as trying to alert the other of his presence and save Matt the trouble of a fright. Then again, perhaps Red Leader simply found the redhead's alarmed reactions too humorous to bother preventing them.  
Matt made no attempt to call him out on this, either; he kept silent, only going so far as to cast a slightly wary glare in the shorter man's direction. It appeared Tord had paid him exactly no mind through the whole ordeal, his own attention on messing about with something or other on his desk, seemingly entirely unbroken. It was almost as if he'd neglected to notice Matt's presence entirely, something Matt could only slightly-bitterly scoff internally at the idea of; he knew damn well that he was visible even from standing at the entrance of the room. There was no genuine way Red Leader could actually have missed him.  
He sighed almost inaudibly, refocusing on the notes in his lap. No use getting mad over what had happened dozens of times by now, though he wished he could at least get used to it. He wondered briefly at the lack of a greeting; but that was likely nothing. Tord probably had merely wished not to disturb him while he was working, right?

Matt’s gaze returned fully to the notebook within his lap, not bothering to break the silence. He couldn’t tell quite if it was a comfortable one or not.


	2. Chapter 2

The final rays of sun had dipped below the horizon well over three hours ago. Matt stood against the wall of one of the base’s hallways; he knew the place well enough not to get lost, but tonight found him uneasily wandering without a goal. He didn’t care enough to figure out his bearings from here. No footfalls could be heard from anywhere nearby; the silence swallowing him whole, leaving Matt feeling mercifully isolated and unobserved.  
No one could notice or care if he stood here for hours, or slumped his way to the floor in a disgruntled heap, or nodded off against the wall, arms folded, practically curled on himself as if his own limbs could shelter him from being discovered--

\--

He jerked awake at the sound of voices. Matt couldn’t even recall falling asleep, and now his heart was set off and racing in a sense of panic as the older man clumsily hurried to his feet, trying to straighten his clothes, to brush off any implication that he might have just woken up in a hallway; his nervous rushing preoccupying him too badly to have even realized the voices had faded out, nor to have identified who they had even belonged to.  
When it did finally sink in that whomever had been nearby was now gone, the redhead took a moment to look around himself again. He shut his eyes, breathing in a sigh, steadying himself. He turned back toward the turn he’d taken earlier, prior to nodding off, making his way in the direction of his temporary quarters again. If he was going to end up falling asleep while he was moping about on his own, it might as well occur in the slightly-more-comfortable bed he’d been given while he wasn’t out in the field.

Making his way to his room had gone without seeing another soul. It was late, after all, but even so…  
But Matt wasn’t about to complain. Less people to see him in his current state was all for the better, if you asked him. He flopped to the bed with a huff, its frame squeaking lightly from the sudden impact. He rolled to face the wall and frowned to himself in the dim light of a desklamp on the nightstand. He had turned it on upon entering, now not caring enough to roll back off the mattress and flip its switch back off.

Dwelling to himself on idle thoughts of paperwork and the background, lingering thought of rueing the events that had led him to this very moment, Matt shut his eyes. Nothing better to do now but sleep.

\--

When he woke again, it was in a cold sweat, on his back; fear gripping him. Night hardly passed now without interruptions. Coming back to himself, realizing where he still was, he pulled in a shaking breath and rolled back over to try and sleep again.  
There was no one to give comfort, as badly as he and his quaking breaths may have needed it, and he wasn’t about to admit the need to find out if he was wrong.


End file.
